Commercial vehicle safety in Houston: inspections, licensing, insurance and hazmat routes

Inspectors in Texas carried out 380,491 roadside inspections of commercial vehicles in federal fiscal year (FY) 2025. That was 12.1% of the 3,131,755 inspections nationwide, by Texas Mobility Outlook’s calculation. More than a quarter of the Texas inspections, 27.79%, turned up at least one out-of-service violation, the kind that stops a driver or vehicle until it is fixed. Nationally, the share was 19.92%.¹

Harris County recorded 5,913 crashes involving commercial vehicles in 2025, and 43 people died in them.²

Texas roadside inspections and out-of-service rates

The Texas numbers differ from the national ones in two directions. Vehicles fared worse: 26.20% of vehicle inspections in Texas ended in an out-of-service order, against 23.32% nationally. Drivers fared slightly better, with a driver out-of-service rate of 6.23% against 6.83%.¹ The vehicle defects behind those orders, led by lights, brakes and tires, are covered in commercial truck maintenance failures.

Federal inspectors play an unusually large role in Texas. They conducted 58,776 of the state’s inspections, 15.4% of the Texas total and 57.9% of all federal roadside inspections in the country, by Texas Mobility Outlook’s arithmetic from tables published by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA).¹

Top driver violations in Texas

Credentials dominate the Texas list. Operating a commercial vehicle without a commercial driver’s license (CDL) was cited 14,269 times, and 13,978 of those citations were out-of-service violations. A border-zone English language proficiency violation, cited under an FMCSA enforcement memo, came second with 12,665. Together the two made up 34.0% of all driver violations recorded in Texas (computed).¹

The national list is led instead by traffic and logbook violations: failing to obey a traffic control device, electronic logging device (ELD) form and manner, speeding 6 to 10 mph over the limit, false records of duty status and failing to certify ELD records.¹ The logbook rules are explained on the hours-of-service rules page, and recent changes to them are dated in the 2025-2026 rule change timeline.

English proficiency rules are changing. Since Dec. 11, 2025, Texas applies the federal English proficiency requirement to drivers who operate only inside the state.³ An FMCSA proposal published Aug. 10, 2026 would make failing the requirement an out-of-service violation; comments were due Oct. 9, 2026.⁴ In FY 2025, only 91 of the 12,665 border-zone proficiency citations in Texas were out-of-service violations.¹

CDL training requirements

Since Feb. 7, 2022, drivers seeking a Class A or Class B CDL for the first time, or upgrading to one, must first complete entry-level training from a provider on FMCSA’s Training Provider Registry. The rule also covers first-time passenger (P), school bus (S) and hazardous materials (H) endorsements. Licenses, endorsements and learner’s permits issued before that date are exempt.⁵

The Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse

FMCSA’s Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse is an online federal database that identifies drivers prohibited from operating a commercial vehicle because of drug and alcohol program violations.⁶ Its requirements took effect Jan. 6, 2020, apart from a state query requirement.⁷ Employers must query it before hiring a driver and for every driver once a year, and since Jan. 6, 2023 they must use it to check a driver’s record with previous employers.⁸

A later rule, known as Clearinghouse-II, has applied to the states since Nov. 18, 2024. State licensing agencies must now query the Clearinghouse for CDL and learner’s permit applicants, may not issue, renew, upgrade or transfer a CDL or permit for a prohibited driver, and must downgrade a prohibited driver’s license within 60 days of notice.^9,10 In FY 2025, Texas inspectors recorded 354 violations under four codes for drivers operating while prohibited under the Clearinghouse rules, 349 of them out-of-service violations.¹

Insurance minimums for trucking companies

Federal minimums apply to interstate carriers. A for-hire carrier hauling general freight in a vehicle of 10,001 pounds or more must carry at least $750,000 in liability coverage, an amount listed in the federal schedule with a date of Jan. 1, 1985. Carriers of oil and other hazardous materials need $1 million, and carriers of bulk hazardous substances, explosives and certain other listed materials need $5 million.¹¹ Bus companies need $5 million for vehicles with 16 or more seats and $1.5 million for 15 or fewer.¹²

The Texas Department of Motor Vehicles (TxDMV) sets lower minimums for intrastate general freight: $500,000 combined single limit for carriers operating vehicles over 26,000 pounds. Its hazardous materials minimums match the federal ones, at $1 million and $5 million. Household goods carriers using vehicles under 26,000 pounds need $300,000.¹³ The Texas rule adopts the federal Part 387 by reference through July 1, 2024.¹⁴ A TxDMV proposal published Aug. 28, 2026 would amend the rule but leaves the minimum amounts unchanged.¹⁵

Hazardous materials routes in Houston

The City of Houston designated the 610 Loop as its through route for non-radioactive hazardous materials in a March 4, 1970 ordinance. The same ordinance prohibits those loads on I-45 from Franklin Street to US 59, the stretch known as the Pierce Elevated, on US 59 from I-45 to Buffalo Bayou, and on streets around the Texas Medical Center.¹⁶ The Houston Police Department describes the Pierce Elevated and the US 59 overpass as restricted hazmat routes.¹⁷ Outside the city, Deer Park designates SH 225 through its city limits.¹⁶ Corridor details are in the I-610 and SH 225 guides.

Texas law requires cities with more than 850,000 people to designate these routes and submit them to the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT).¹⁶ Under federal rules, a route takes effect only after FMCSA publishes it in the National Hazardous Materials Route Registry.¹⁸ FMCSA’s update of Dec. 8, 2025 covered changes reported from April 2024 through March 2025 and included no Texas changes.¹⁹

Where no route is designated, federal rules require carriers to keep placarded loads away from heavily populated areas, crowds, tunnels, narrow streets and alleys unless there is no practicable alternative or a reasonable deviation is needed. Operating convenience does not count as a reason, and explosives in Divisions 1.1 to 1.3 require a written route plan.²⁰ Those explosives must also be attended at all times and may not be parked within 300 feet of a bridge, tunnel, dwelling or place where people gather, except briefly.²¹

Placards mark which loads these rules cover. Materials in the regulation’s Table 1, such as Division 1.1 explosives, require placards in any amount. Table 2 materials need placards once the non-bulk load reaches 1,001 pounds aggregate gross weight.²² Texas inspections found a hazmat out-of-service violation in 4.61% of hazmat inspections in FY 2025, against 4.31% nationally.¹

Truck blind spots, stopping distance and weight

FMCSA’s guidance for passenger vehicle drivers says a truck driver has limited visibility on all four sides, with large blind spots, which it calls “No Zones,” around the front, back and sides of the truck. That wording comes from a 2016 version of the agency’s “No Zones” page; the current page shows only a video.²⁴ FMCSA’s current tips page puts the mirror rule this way: “if you can’t see a truck or bus driver’s face in their mirror, they can’t see you.”²⁵ Texas Mobility Outlook found no FMCSA page that gives distances for those blind spots, though distances are often quoted elsewhere.

The same guidance says large trucks need up to two football fields to stop safely, and that a tractor-trailer can weigh up to 80,000 pounds, often 20 to 30 times as much as a passenger vehicle.²⁵ The federal brake test standard is set at a lower speed: a tractor-semitrailer’s service brakes must stop it from 20 mph within 40 feet.²⁶

Commercial vehicle crashes in Houston and Texas

Harris County’s 5,913 commercial vehicle crashes in 2025 were 15.3% of the Texas total, while its 43 deaths were 8.1% of the state’s 528, by Texas Mobility Outlook’s calculation.² The year-by-year figures and county comparisons are on the Houston truck crash statistics page. Statewide, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) counted 720 deaths in crashes involving large trucks in Texas in 2024, more than in any other state.²⁷ The Texas commercial vehicle crash statistics page compares the state and federal counts.

Limits of these figures

• Inspection counts are not crash risk. Out-of-service rates depend on which vehicles inspectors choose to stop, so a higher Texas rate does not by itself show that Texas trucks are in worse condition.
• Rules change. The rules on this page are current as of Oct. 6, 2026. Proposals affecting Texas insurance rules and federal English proficiency enforcement were pending in 2026.